It’s 2016, we should start acting like it.
Originally published on 31/01/2016
I am going to elaborate on why I feel our generation needs to stop living like our parents’ generation and to inspire change in almost every present institution. If we don’t, people are going to continue shooting each other until a nuclear bomb goes off and destroys Earth.
Fucked Area 1: Congress
Fuck Congress. I interned on Capitol Hill, and let me tell you, that shit was fucked. Politicians are narcissists who want to be in office for as long as possible. They gerrymander, make promises they have no intention of keeping, suck dick, snort coke, whatever it takes to stay there. When constituents would call, I was told to say “thanks for your message I’ll pass it along to the congressman” hang up, and take the next call. The only people allowed to actually talk to the Congressmen are the lobbyists. Money and fame, that’s all those people care about. AND THEY’RE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY! This is why women suffer. These people think a woman’s place is in the kitchen. I’m serious. I had lunch with a Congressman one time, and he said to me, “Erica, it’s great you’re here and all, but you do know that your greatest accomplishment will be making your husband happy, right?” Fuck him.
Fucked Area 2: Education
I decided to do something about it. I proposed to the UC Berkeley Political Science department, the most liberal educational department in the WORLD, an honors thesis about the corrupt nature of Congress. I was denied honors. This institution sucked thousands of dollars from me for four years to let me ditch every class and still get A’s, and the one time I decided to actually do something meaningful in college (besides join a sorority only to get judged and criticized by other sororities and even members of my own sorority, sexually abused at a frat house, and subsequently tormented online) and despite my GPA, I was denied. That thesis was far superior than my thesis in Rhetoric and Biology, where I half ass’d it. I love you Berkeley, but I am still bitter about this.
Fucked Area 3: The Legal System
This is fucked in so many ways. Take the California Bar Exam for example. This bitch of a test is 3 days, 6 hours a day, and only 40% of people who take it pass. Why? Look at the American Bar Association. Would any of you guys want to join the ABA? No. What is the ABA anyway? It’s a group of old fucks set in their ways bitter about their lives resistant to change trying desperately to perpetuate the status-quo. These people probably went to Harvard and Yale, and can’t stand that non-ABA accredited institutions (with people of color in attendance! How abominable!) can let their students sit for the bar. So they make it ridiculously hard so that anyone who has been unfairly disadvantaged in life, looking for a way to finally change things for the better, to become what they are – a lawyer. How unthinkable that these people with mental disabilities (people with bipolar disorder and depression cannot pass the moral character exam, must disclose all their medical records to the ABA, and are deemed “unfit for the practice of law” almost every time), people with learning disabilities (no time accommodations for those with ADD and dyslexia), people who are poor (the bar costs $3k to take) could ever be on par with them! But, they are a victim of circumstance, and lived in an era where black people had separate bathrooms, and their parents went to KKK lynchings. How are they supposed to change when they are so old and set in their ways? Back to the bar, after these 60% of people who invested 3 years and $200k+ they didn’t have to become a lawyer, do not pass the exam necessary for them to become a lawyer and therefore achieve the salary necessary to be able to pay back their loans, they have to take it again. Another 3 months of unemployment and another $3k for the next exam. It’s no wonder lawyers are the least happy profession – they’ve been fucked with for years, and everyone who runs the game thinks it’s hilarious. 3 of my most intelligent friends failed the bar the first time by 2%. The ABA fails at life.
I saw the institution of law as ridiculous from early on and was very relieved I did not end up going to law school and subject myself to unhappiness and student debt. However, this shit won’t change until these old fucks die. Judges are appointed FOR LIFE?! What is that shit? So whoever the sociopath white male President is at the moment can pick people who are also ridiculous to judge whether or not others go to jail for life? No wonder US prisons are 80% black. With mostly drug crimes. And these racist elitist judges aren’t going anywhere until they die.
Fucked Area 4: The Modeling Industry
Modeling world in Europe. What a fucked up industry this is. I took a respectable job at Unicef in Madrid and was told by my entire office, “Why are you here? You’re so pretty, you should be a model.” My idiot mind listened to them. I became a model. Throughout that time, I cannot count the amount of times I was asked to do nude work and more. One guy even threatened to kill me because I denied working as a “host” at a “men’s poker night” where I was expected to massage the men, and do anything else he wants. The pay was 8,000€. My highest paid job was 500€. If I didn’t have a parents who bank rolled my life at that time, like so many don’t, I would have done it and fucked up my life forever. I was later told I was too fat (I weighed 120lbs) and too short to sign with a higher paying agency, and quit that life forever.
Fucked Area 5: Men Running the World
(check back I will write more about women in tech and the sexism we face on a daily bases)
It seems as though all respectable jobs for women are run by men who underpay and undervalue their female counterparts. In every industry. Women have been told for centuries that we are not on par with men, however I have yet to meet a man I genuinely believe is smarter than me. We are sexually harassed in the workplace, fired first, and paid the least.We’re all smart as shit, but we waste our energy on the wrong things. We go on Tinder and let fuckboys ruin what remaining self-esteem we had left. We do nothing about it, because we don’t think we can do anything about it.
I could go on, but you get the point. The world is fucked up by our parents’ generation, and if we keep perpetuating the norm, we’ll all end up on antidepressants and drugs to numb ourselves from this mundane life. Or, we’ll decide to enter a movie theater and kill everyone. Or join ISIS. Anything to escape this reality.
In 2016 I vow to do something about it.